Ten years ago the black middle classes, of which I am part, were still in the mood to celebrate Freedom Day. For many of us our lives are fundamentally different to those of our parents and we enjoy opportunities and lifestyles of which they could only dream. But today even the black middle classes are disillusioned. The collapse of public services and infrastructure means that education, health care, security, electricity and now even water are increasingly privately sourced by those with the... Читать дальше...
Indian corporate interests are counting on incumbent Modi winning another five years in office, “hoping for further easing of stifling investment restraints,” as per the Financial Times. This dismantling of regulations, which began a few decades before the BJP gained power, ushered in an erosion of India’s socialist infrastructure. Economists Subhashree Banerjee and Yash Tayal explained in the Deccan Herald, that India’s 1991 reforms ended up “liberalizing the Indian economy to an unprecedented extent. Читать дальше...
In late October, 2018, East Bay DSA members and other progressives organized a pre-election rally at a Berkeley High School auditorium. A wildly-cheering crowd of several thousand came to hear Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Welcoming everyone to the event was 34-year old Jesse Arreguin, who was backed by Sanders when he More
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What to do. What to do. Consider our times. Do you feel, like I feel, massive confusion at what is happening out there. Even if I confine myself to considering perhaps the three largest current instances of mind madness, confusion abounds. The three are the Orange Trumpist or fascist onslaught in the U.S. and elsewhere; More
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Students at more than 40 universities and colleges in the United States and around the world have lit a fire under the Palestine solidarity movement by setting up encampments on their campuses. They are demanding that their universities end their complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine more broadly. While the first and More
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It is unfortunate that column space should be dedicated to Britain’s shortest termed prime minister and, arguably, one of its most imbecilic and cringingly juvenile. But given that some people still sympathise with her and her views, it falls to one to tackle her latest work which resembles other types of the gloomy genre warning that More
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Interrogations of university leaders spearheaded by conservative congressional representatives. Calls from right-wing senators for troops to intervene in campus demonstrations. Hundreds of student and faculty arrests, with nonviolent dissenters thrown to the ground, tear-gassed and tased. We’ve been here before. In my book “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America,” More
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Thursday afternoon, April 25th, 2024, I was doing my job making sales calls as a staffperson at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana,.My wife was walking with me on campus and we heard shouts coming from Dunn Meadow. Earlier we had seen police cars blocking off Indiana Avenue north of Kirkwood, near the Sample Gates. As More
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This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to ban non-compete clauses in most employment contracts. These clauses, which are now widely used, prohibit workers from working for another employer, or setting up their own business, for several years after quitting a job. These clauses are very common in employment contracts for veterinarians. I mention More
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On 4/26, four students were “temporarily suspended” by Cornell University for exercising their constitutional right to protest. In response, these students issued the following statement: “In the past months, we have seen an incredible movement form on Cornell’s campus: students, faculty members, and staff have joined together to voice their support for the Palestinian Liberation More
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